


The Magnus Records 002 - Please Open

by ErinsWorks



Series: The Magnus Records [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Magnus Records
Genre: AU: The entities are nice and the world is awful., Alternate Universe, Gen, The Magnus Records - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 16:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20799371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinsWorks/pseuds/ErinsWorks
Summary: In another world, one with horrid architecture and benign entities, perhaps Joshua "Coffin Guy" Gillespie could have had a more pleasant experience at the coffee shop in Amsterdam. Perhaps he could've learned to be more... open.Here at the Magnus Sanctuary, London, we will find out.Start your interview. Share your hope.





	The Magnus Records 002 - Please Open

**MAG002 **– Resident 2011 – “Please Open”****

**KEEPER **

Interview with Joshua Gillespie, about his experiences with help from the Sanctuary, and a “waking dream” involving his possession of a wooden wardrobe. Original interview taken November 22nd, 1998. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Record Keeper.

Interview begins.

**KEEPER (INTERVIEW)**

It started when I was in Amsterdam on this business trip of sorts, with my coworkers. Everything you’re thinking now, you’re right: We were all impressionable twenty-somethings, just out of college, and we had all signed contracts we hadn’t fully read. So before you know it, we get shipped off to _ Amsterdam _ of all places, to get a taste of the dreary weather and drearier cityscape. As someone with a passion for old architecture, I really wasn’t excited to get a look at another _ brutalist nightmare _ that makes up… pretty much _ every _ city at this point… but I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. I had a job to do, signing papers over the coast in the Netherlands, and it wasn’t my job to go skyscraper-watching. Thing is, I went skyscraper-watching anyway.

I don’t know _ why _ I decided to do it to myself, as I knew I _ really _ wouldn’t like it, but I did. And sure enough, I _ really didn’t like it _ . The grey skies and grey city and grey _ people _ can really take it out of you. And the fact that I only knew the few words of Dutch that corporate had stuffed into my head really didn’t help me with navigating that city. Where _ everything looks the same. _ By the time I got back to Elandsstraat it was starting to get dark and I was feeling just… _ dreadful _ really. So before I had to go to my 8:30 meeting- who schedules for 8:30 by the way- I decided to get some coffee. 

And in the coffeeshop, at exactly 7:45 P.M., as the sun started to set, I met the man who would change my life.

He looked like my third grade teacher, honestly. Or maybe it was my fourth grade teacher. Either way, I know he looked like _ one _ of them. I don’t know what it is, but something about him seemed… _ Recognizable. _

The man introduced himself as John, and then asked how I was feeling. I said I was feeling _ awful _ . he said he _ "completely understood" _ . He gestured around and said that _ "the way this place looked would wear down on anyone", _ especially _ “someone with your interests”. _ Thinking back on it now, I realize that he _ somehow _ knew I preferred classical architecture. But it didn’t strike me as odd at the time. I just sort of… nodded along. But after that, he asked me something truly bizarre, and even with his _ weird casual charisma _ it caught me _ entirely off guard. _

_ “Would you like to rent a wardrobe?” _

I was more than a little unbalanced by the question. If anyone else I had just met had asked that, I think I probably would’ve assumed they were high on some cocktail of drugs. But I can’t stress enough that this man just felt _ trustworthy _ to me. I assumed there was absolutely nothing wrong with his perfectly innocent solicitation for me to _ rent a wardrobe. _

All the same, I had a few questions. I asked what kind of wardrobe it was. He said it was an _ "ornate, double-doored armoire, with six drawers" _ . I asked what color it was. He said it was painted _ "a delightfully rich brown" _ . I asked what material it was. He said _ "spruce" _ . I asked how much it would cost to rent it for, say, a year. He said _ "£10". _

Naturally, that threw me. 

I’ve looked into it, and as you've probably guessed, £10 is a stupidly low price for a rental of _ any _kind of furniture for a year. But… it was the price he'd offered. So it was the price I paid.

I left the coffee shop immediately after that. I went to the meeting, I got everything in order, and I didn't think about that strange encounter with the man in the coffee shop for quite some time. I only _ started _ thinking about it when I realized that I hadn't even given the man my address. Furthermore, despite the fact that he spoke fluent English, I had no clue if he even lived in the U.K. I thought, maybe this was some brilliant scam: some guy from Amsterdam would sell you something for nothing, then he'd mark up the shipping cost and pocket the difference.

That line of reasoning ended when, again, I realized I hadn't given him my address. At the end, I just figured that I was now £10 poorer, and one scam-on-a-business-trip-wiser. And that was the last I thought of that.

I got fired a bit later. I fell on some rough times. You know how rent is here, I'm sure. So I came to The Sanctuary, got back on my feet, and with your help, I got myself an apartment. It was small- practically just a bed, a window, and enough space for a table- but it was enough for me to feel like I was supporting myself again.

Here's where things get _ weird, _ Gertrude.

A week into owning the room, I get a knock on my door. I was eating my morning breakfast cereal, when I hear a brief _ tap-tap-tap. _ I got up from my bed, opened the door, and saw… Well, I saw a wardrobe. It had a sticky-note firmly applied to its right doorknob: _ "Delivered with care by Breekon And Hope, contracted by Your Dear Friend in Amsterdam." _ It was the furthest thing from my mind at that moment, but the memory of that bizarre exchange immediately came rushing back.

And there it was. _ Ornate, double-door armoire _and all. The funny thing is, it seemed perfectly sized to fit through my doorway if I pushed it into my apartment. So I... I pushed it into my apartment. And sure enough- with a bit of adjustment- it sat at the corner of my room, dimensions perfectly fitted into a nook in my wall.

It really was a nice wardrobe. It looked well-crafted, with these fantastic wood-carved features that accented the doors and drawers. The paint seemed completely unmarked. It looked like it was in such good condition, and fit so well, that you would've thought it was made and painted _ in the room. _ You certainly wouldn't have thought it was _ shipped here _ in _ one piece. _It looked almost perfect.

… But there was ONE mark on it. On the right-hand door frame, a piece of scotch tape kept a key attached to a small line of text that seemed inked into the wood like a tattoo. _ "Please Open" _ it read, in perfect cursive. _ "Please Open". _

I didn't want to open it. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I thought I'd somehow ruin the wardrobe just by touching the locks below the knobs. Maybe I thought the wardrobe was spiting me, by fitting so perfectly into the wall, and then _ asking _ to be opened. I could've thought a whole host of things. I wasn't exactly thinking straight that early in the morning, but for some reason I'd made up my mind. I put the key in the bottom-right drawer of the wardrobe, and I didn't think of it again.

Or at least. Not until the next clear night.

It was midwinter in England. You don't get many clear skies in this _ country _ , let alone in this _ season, _so it took about a week or two until the full moon was visible from my building… and I heard this wonderful singing.

I was lying in bed at the time, and I assumed that it was someone else in the building playing opera music. It seemed reasonable, right? It was sort of… _ muffled. _ Like it was playing through the walls. But as I lay there in my bed, I slowly realized that the music was coming from _ inside my room. _ I got to my feet, ready to defend myself from whatever _ crazed intruder _had broken into my building to play 

But there was no crazed intruder. There was just the wardrobe.

The wardrobe was _ singing _ . It was singing to the moon outside my window. It was singing to the sky. And I know this sounds… _ completely insane… _ but it was singing to _ me. _ I could feel it.

I got back in bed.

When I woke up the next morning, the wardrobe had stopped singing. It was just a wardrobe again. And wardrobes didn't sing. They kept clothes and valuables inside their drawers, and they didn't _ want _ people to open them, and they didn't _ sing. _ But I knew this one did.

The next clear night came weeks later. The next came days after that. I think, at this point, I'd just resolved that I'd gone insane, or something along those lines, but somehow I figured it wasn't anything worth going to a psychiatric or you about. My wardrobe sang when the moon was out. That didn't seem all that bad, at least, not here in the U.K. 

But then three months later, a neighbor knocked on my door and asked if I was the one singing last night. That shook me up a bit.

The night after that was a clear one. The wardrobe was singing again. The key sat undisturbed in the bottom right-drawer. And that was the last night I'd go without opening the damn lock. I threw open the doors. And what I saw wasn't possible.

It was a flowered countryside. Daisies and poppies growing over emerald-green hills, all under a night sky filled with stars. I'd never really known what light pollution was. Not until I saw that night sky, so endless and clear. But, as dumb as it sounds to say this… The impossible hillside that stretched on and on forever, just past the doors of my wardrobe, wasn't the most insane thing about it. The insane thing was the man with goat-legs, standing on the tallest hill.

I did what anyone would do. I climbed in.

As I stumbled into the wardrobe, I looked behind me to see that the walls of my apartment were no longer there. It was just the wardrobe and the hillside, in a beautiful ocean of grass and sky. I started walking towards the man, and it was now easy to tell that the singing that had been guiding me to sleep at night was _ his. _ He didn't turn to look at me, but as I reached the top of the hill, I could tell he knew I was there. 

He asked me why I kept myself locked up in my tiny apartment. I started to take offense, and opened my mouth to defend myself, but I realized… he was right. I barely spoke to my friends now. I was so busy with work that I had kept myself trapped in my claustrophobic half-home.

He told me I needed to find somewhere more open. Somewhere I could breathe. Somewhere I could go without restraint. He still hadn't looked at me yet, but he reached out his hand and pointed to the night sky. _ "Be like a star." _ He said. _ "Have the space of the sky, and mean something." _

Those words stuck with me when I woke up the next morning. The wardrobe was gone, and in its place was another sticky-note: _ "Thank you from renting from Your Dear Friend. This object has been collected by Breekon and Hope." _ I didn't think about the fact that they'd have had to break into my home in order to get rid of the wardrobe. I just thought about how I had to get out of that goddamn apartment. So I did. And now I'm here. Telling you.

I think I'm going to go soon. I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that, really. Maybe live in the woods. Maybe share a nice flat with some friends. But I'm not going to live in a box anymore.

Thank you, Gertrude. For everything.

**KEEPER**

Interview ends.

Regarding the resident himself, last I heard, Joshua is now living happily on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. As for the state of his papers...

_ <<Deep sigh>> _

Again, Gertrude reveals her utter professional _ incompetence _ and _ irresponsibility _ by failing to record this resident's clear signs of long-term debilitating mental illness. I have begun to suspect that her campaign to hide the Sanctuary's entire repository of psychiatric records behind lock and key was, in reality, a ploy to stop her from being implicated in a devastating malpractice lawsuit. Or perhaps she recognized that this _ "waking dream" _ has far too many clearly intentional parallels to the works of C.S. Lewis to be a random fit of insanity. 

_ Or _… perhaps she genuinely believed these stories. Perhaps she really was that naive.

In any case, I have resorted to enlisting the aid of my… _ confidants… _ in attempting to find Gertrude's current place of residence. She may no longer _ work _ with the Sanctuary, but at this point, I am no longer above tracking down a former senior employee, as long as it means I can _ do my job. _

… End recording.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be entirely honest with you all, this isn't my proudest work. MAG003 - A Door Down is my personal favorite so far.
> 
> That said! It was great to write this parallel to one of my favorite episodes of the show. Gotta love Coffin Guy. What a fucking icon.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the read!


End file.
